Could a platform floating in the atmosphere function as an air/spaceport to facilitate launches to LEO more economically?

“In April 1970, the crew of NASA’s Apollo 13 mission swung around the far side of the moon at an altitude of 158 miles (254 km), putting them 248,655 miles (400,171 km) away from Earth. It’s the farthest our species has ever been from our home planet.” – Wikipedia. When will we reach the 250,000 mark? Will Elon Musk make the founder of ZoZo the first?

If a floating city could be constructed 20km up in the atmosphere it would change the shape of Earths space program and make populating the solar system within reach of a generation, from when it’s operational.

How could such a gravity defying concept possibly exist? Using lighter than air flight tech and renewable energy tech. In essence we are talking about an X miles/sQ platform held up by balloons and given extra lift/maneuverability from fans powered by solar energy.

The reason for the ‘X’ miles/sQ is because I simply do not have the engineering knowledge to do the sum. But the question remains: how many miles/sQ platform need to be to launch a rocket? How much would it cost to make/maintain? and does the cost benefit outweigh itself?

Bear in mind this could also be the anchor station for a low Earth orbit space tether which could be a staging point for a GEO tether station which makes it the first step in having a functioning space elevator.

Cargo could be launched to this platform using a launch loop. It could connect with a low Earth orbital ring with a space tether. This could be the stagging area for a tether to GEO. It’s infrastructure we have yet to confront. And once ‘complete’ will forever be a work in progress and will have all the challenges/successes and failures with the incumbant life loss as we have witnesses building trains and ships to cross the oceans.

It’s our next frontier. Affordable travel to the stars and as life has taught me a task that is late to be started is the longest to be finished…

The first step in such a mammoth project is to get a stable and permanent platform 20-40km up from which we could launch from.

The loads we are talking in in excess of billions of tons. That’s some people of this generation (and their baggage) nevermind all the raw materials needed to build such engineering marvels. And fancy fireworks are just not going to cut it in the long run…

Rocket technology is not renewable and is grossly inefficient. But like every kg added to a rocket luanches weight expoentially increases the weight of the whole craft due to extra fuel needed – the higher the launch platform the sums reverse and more kgs can be launched for the same amount of fuel simply by launching it from a higher altitude. ie 20-40kg.

This height could even just be accessed using large specially equipped planes. Boeing 747s were used to transport the Space Shuttles on their back…